| In 1964, Lyndon Johnson, seeking election
to the presidency in his own right, opposed enlarging the U.S. role in
Vietnam. However, in late July and early August of that year, the
U.S. Navy was running coastal raids in the area of the Gulf of Tonkin near
Vietnam. As two ships, the Maddox and the Turner Joy, were returning
to the gulf, they were fired upon. Johnson used this incident to
pressure the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by J. William
Fulbright, a Democrat from Arkansas, to push through the Gulf of Tonkin
Resolution. In fine, the resolution gave Johnson Congressional approval
to increase American involvement in Vietnam. As a matter of fact,
it was almost a blank check, allowing Johnson a free hand to run the war
the way he chose. Until the resolution was repealed by the Senate
over a half dozen years later, the U.S. forces grew in number in Vietnam
until they reached a half million troops. Johnson extended the war
from defense of the South to the bombing of north of the 17th parallel
in 1965.
The cost of the war — from $6 billion in 1966 to a height of $24 billion in 1968 — coupled with the evening TV news broadcasts showing daily horror stories caused the public to oppose America's involvement in the war. Protests took to the streets. Thousands of young men refused to follow the law of conscription. Demonstrations grew each month, and national leaders joined in the chorus of opposition. Johnson's popularity sunk to an all-time low, thus he chose not to seek another term in 1968. Democratic Senator Eugene McCarthy from Minnesota ran for the presidency. He lost the nomination of the Democratic Party to Hubert Humphrey, Johnson's vice-president, at the riot-torn national convention in Chicago. The entrance of Alabama governor, George Wallace, a Democrat running as an independent, gave the eventual 1968 victory to Republican Richard M. Nixon. Nixon had hoped to end the war soon but no easy solution existed. His escalation was witnessed in spreading the U.S. effort through secret bombings in Cambodia that began in March, 1969. More demonstrations resulted in the darkest hour looming over the Kent State University campus in Ohio. There, National Guardsmen opened fire on demonstrators, killing 4 students and wounding 11, in an attempt to halt a student protest against the war. America was enraged. The war had now divided the country.
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